slooooow

[Randy Bush]

more on this

tried creating a test user, so no cruft hanging around.
same problem.

spends a bunch of time like this

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
  897 randy    109    0 60432K 57424K RUN     11:11 60.94% 60.94% gnome-backgro
  728 randy     76    0 82300K 80508K RUN      2:48 12.50% 12.50% XFree86
  778 randy     77    0  6376K  5148K select   0:55  3.12%  3.12% gconfd-2
  747 randy     77    0 16244K 11756K select   0:34  2.34%  2.34% gnome-session
  889 randy     20    0 70148K 65932K kserel   1:39  0.00%  0.00% nautilus

if i try to edit themes in control center

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
 1054 test     139    0 32188K 29916K RUN     15:47 95.31% 95.31% gnome-theme-m
  784 test      76    0   102M    99M RUN     26:46  0.78%  0.78% XFree86
  821 test      76    0  9156K  7932K select   0:12  0.00%  0.00% gconfd-2
  864 test      76    0 12256K  9320K select   0:08  0.00%  0.00% metacity

to start any gnome/natilus thing takes ten minutes

randy